Cohousing-L Mailing List: Pet, gun, kid policies

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

When you  tackle making rules about how you want to live, and when you deal
with topics that have high potential for passionate disagreement on details,
it is in my experience a wise course to start any such process with a good
conversation about WHY and WHAT.  Why should we do this? Why is this
necessary. What do we hope to accomplish.

Broad conceptual frameworks before the details help make details easier to
agree to.

Case in point:  Sharingwoods original pet policy went around in circles over
details. We stepped back as a group and asked, why have a pet policy at all?
One concept we all agreed to was that we wanted preserve and protect the
wildlife on our land. All the rest of the details we had been arguing over
then fell together under this concept and we came to an agreement at the
next meeting. 


Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Cohousing Community, Snohomish County, WA
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
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